We Watch The Olympics: Badminton and Athletics

It wouldn’t be a badminton match screening in the Lee household without all the screams, insults and moans…and we had all three in abundance during the men’s singles final in the London Olympics where Lee Chong Wei faced Lin Dan. It was heartbreaking to see the Malaysian ace lose in the rubber set, he definitely played his heart out and ended up settling for silver. It was way better than the Beijing final which featured the same two players, widely considered to be best of all time.

I managed to catch about three quarters of the Women’s Marathon before switching channels for the Badminton finale. It was pretty awesome looking at the runners run through London, which happened to be former haunt for my parents. It was a shame that the world record holder (and Great Britain runner) Paula Radcliffe wasn’t in the mix as she was out injured. I wanted to see Desiree Davila run but that girl really should have stayed home instead of starting, and then dropping out early.

The two other races that I managed to catch (this time on YouTube) were repeats of the Men and Women’s 10K races. Tirunesh Dibaba’s kick at the last 600 meters in the women’s race was really awesome. And I’m happy that the two of Alberto Salazar’s runners, Team GB’s Mo Farah and Team USA’s Galen Rupp finished 1 and 2 in the men’s race, it was a pure tactical victory.